I am new here, but I am wondering where I would find information how to deal with all these members that have my books on their wishlists, but have not been active for over a year (I've seen as much inactivity as 2500 days!), have no inventory, sometimes even negative points (how is that possible?) and obviously no interest to mooch my book. Can those not be just deleted or at least their wishlist inactivated?Should I / could I report these members?

Markus,
I too have books that are on people's wishlists but not mooched; I think we all have. Many people won't mooch from outside their country because they don't want to spend 3 points on a mooch. Although I'm still (just about!) able to continue sending worldwide, I have joined those who are requesting a second mooch (in my case for anything outside Europe). Several people have asked to mooch books on their wishlists, but don't want to mooch a second book.
Those of us in countries where the books we want aren't in the country's first language don't have access to secondhand bookshops, thrift shops, etc, so our choice is either BM or buying. Our attitude is probably, therefore, that every book we mooch costs us three points.- jacquie

I have about 30 or so books listed that are on wishlists. I think it is a problem that I cannot know why someone does not respond. Some kind of rating system is good so that we can know accounts in good standing (so with enough points, would mooch from you given country and your status, active user).
Some kind of algorithm like this would take the annoyance away. BUT still I guess there are some that want a book but not got time to read it etc. So I do not think they should not get the chance to mooch - but its nice to know.
the other suspicion is that if you have 1000 listed books and 1 one in your inventory that you are acting as a dealer and selling the books on. Most people would say why not the site is free for expoitation - but some people want to motivate an active community of book swapping and this does not facilitate this. Another way would be that points are depreciated over time to keep them flowing. When you have no points then your account is closed. One active trade could be used to reactivate an account and keep your points live.
This is a little like taxing to make capitalism function - but it would keep the site functioning and circulate more books.- markus petz

Frustrating *huh*? I would love to help and report obviously inactive accounts, but it doesn't seem to work that way. If I list a wish-listed book on another book swapping page it gets snatched up in no time. Now why does it work there but not here? Sometimes it is helpful to copy good ideas from the "competition" ...- Caljane

I've listed books that are on 20+ wishlists and when I've gone down the list there were five or fewer active accounts. Even then the books stayed with me for months. I used to use the wishlists as a way of deciding whether to list or donate to charity, don't bother anymore.- donna

Thanks for explaining!
If they do not have an inventory, nor points, they can be wishing their butts off and still not be able to mooch a book ...
It does disintegrate the page a bit if there are so many dead accounts. Obviously other pages deal better with it, since I have never noticed it anywhere else with such a force. I go through 6 or 7 "wishers" per book, and either they are from a different country or they have not been active for a long long time. On the other hand: this means that my chances on wished books are much higher because I can assume that of the list of 20 wishers only 2 really want the book :-)- Caljane

Unfortunately even if their account is 'on vacation' they will still have an active wishlist as the 'thinking' is that they may be tempted back at some point, even if they have been absent from the site for years. A lot of members see this as ridiculous but not the guy who runs the site...- donna

Robin,
I usually scan through the country list and click on any names with a high feedback number, then check how many books in pending and when they last logged in. If it looks like they are currently still a active user, I use the form letter posted in the Form Letter thread with a link to the forum and a link to the thread about the country in question. Thanks for doing that, I have been crazy busy the last few weeks. Things will slow down after this week and I can go through what has been done and what still needs to be done.- Cara

got an email today from Berber, who has reactivated. She mooched a book, and asked if I wanted the one I requested. I told her I didn't really, but i smooched her a point so she wouldn't be upset.- Robin

how should I handle mooching from an account that is over 200 days inactive, but is set to "ask first"? I've been asking, then before the reservation runs out mooching with a message that I asked and got no response. Then I'm waiting the seven days to cancel to vacation the account. How do you feel about this?

Hi Pauline! With an "ask me first" account it is kind of difficult to see if someone is really inactive, as the person who mooches would have to be in the same country, and then wait and see if they respond before 7 days...or you can mooch anyway, as it looked like the original poster did, and then do as Cara suggested....- Melanie C.

I've just come across an inactive account with "ask me first" status. The comment in the bio is that the owner don't want to mooch anymore and that s/he has donated all his books, even though his inventory is not empty.
bio:myrtlaf
I don't know if anyone can fix this.
Thanks in advance,
Pauline- PaulineV

This FAQ has been created by the community of Bookmooch members who have embarked on a project to identify and if possible, reactivate inactive accounts.

Why are you doing this?Because members with small inventories sometimes go a long time between mooches, they may fall out of touch with Bookmooch or their listed inventories are no longer accurate. Sometimes email addresses change or members lose interest or just forget about those inventories. A few members have embarked upon this project in the hope that by identifying and mooching from members who have been inactive for a while we can either spark their interest to participate more in Bookmooch, modify or delete their inventories if they have changed, or place the accounts on vacation if they are no longer in touch with Bookmooch so that their inventories are hidden.

How do I help?Search by location for Bookmooch members who have not logged in to their accounts in over 1 year or at least 300 days. You can participate either by looking for accounts or actively mooching from them, or both. Please post a notice in the most appropriate thread in this forum so we can keep track of our efforts and avoid duplication of work.

What if I don't have points, or I don't want to risk getting books I don't want, can I still help?Yes!If there are several books in the inactive person's inventory, but none of them would be acceptable to you, post the link to the member's page in the Inactive people who need moochers thread here: http://bookmooch.com/m/thread/inactive_accounts_cleanup_project/5, and someone else may be able to mooch from them. (Robin)

What if I don't have time to search, but I would be willing to donate points to this project? Can I still help?Yes, you can do one of two things. If you are willing to mooch for us, please check the Inactive people who need moochers thread http://bookmooch.com/m/thread/inactive_accounts_cleanup_project/5 and mooch a couple of books from accounts posted there.

If you don't want more books, but still want to help, please consider giving a few points to one of our active project members. This would be especially helpful for someone who is working all alone to clean up accounts in a large country.

How do I place the accounts on vacation?Once you have requested a mooch you must wait a full 7 days (note that the time displayed on your pending page is US Pacific time). Use the reason: "Owner did not respond" when you cancel and that will trigger Bookmooch to put the account on vacation. (Kerry)

Do I do anything special when I cancel the mooches?Yes. Many of us send an email or put a note in the cancellation email explaining what we are doing and why and explaining how they can reactivate their account. (Cara) You can find copies of sample emails in this forum here: Form Letter

What if I get a message that the email has bounced?You still need to wait the 7 days and cancel to vacation the account.

Also: It'd be good if you looked at the bounce, and saw if it was either: a) the email address is bad or b) the email addresses' anti-spam filter rejected the message I find that (b) happens a lot, and you can circumvent the problem by emailing the person directly and telling them about their problem. I know that the admins suggest people use some of the free mail services with BM in order to avoid that problem. (John Buckman)

What if I don't think anyone will want their books?If the inactive person has only one or two books, and they are obscure, and unlikely to be mooched, it may be ok to skip them at this time, and wait until the next round of "clean-up". (Robin) You can also post them in the Inactive people who need moochers thread here: http://bookmooch.com/m/thread/inactive_accounts_cleanup_project/5 to see if anyone is willing to mooch from them.

How do I post links to inactive accounts?Copy the URL from the member's inventory page for best results. When you paste the URL Bookmooch will automatically convert the URL to a link. Please use URL's from .com which work better than URL's from co.uk. Also copying the URL from the bio page under the BM ID is better than copying the URL from the address bar of the browser for pasting the link into messages. In other words, the URL should *not* include the /bio. (Cara)

How can I make sure someone didn't already work an account?If you go to the Profile page of the member, and look at "pending mooched/given" you will see a number. If it say 0/0, then no one has mooched a cleanup from them. If it says 0/1, CLICK on the link, and check the date. I have found a number of people with 2 year old mooches!!! (this is why we're doing this--so that new members aren't disappointed when they never get a response on a mooch)

If there is no mooch within the last few days (up to 2 weeks, I'd say) then go ahead and mooch if you can. If you just can't bring yourself to mooch one of their books, post their name in the "needing mooches" message trail and someone else will try.

And, I've been leaving unmooched accounts where the entire (usually 5 or Less books) is ancient computer, or other very obscure books. We may need to go clean those out later, but for now I think they're not doing any damage. (Robin)

Ruth, I just sent you a few points as well. Ditto about paying back whenever makes sense. Thanks for doing this - as you know, domestic mooching is a lot quicker and cheaper than trying to do this from overseas.- LauraTS

Hi, I have been mooching books from inactive United Kingdom accounts for several months now & have nearly finished, only to realise I think I need to start again as I have come across some which I must have missed! However I have also started on some overseas accounts & would be delighted to be more active with these, but due to receiving quite a few books that I did not expect to get & having been unable to pass these on so far, my points are very low. To avoid losing even more points now, I tell the person I am helping with the inactive project & if they have the book & wish to remain active, please can they log in & contact me. I will then cancel the mooch so they do not have to refuse it. So that I can help to clear more of the inactives, is there anyway of obtaining more points even if it only on a temporary basis? I would be quite happy to pay these back when I am unable to continue doing this. Thank you- Ruth

That is a good idea, adriane. For these accounts, hopefully the books showing up in the mail will remind them to log back in. If not, you will eventually be able to force them as received. I think it is six weeks for a domestic mooch and four months for an international one before the button shows up on the transaction. You haven't lost points, though. Even if the book goes lost, you got the point when they mooched from you and it won't be taken away automatically.- Sarah

to all BOOKMOOCH PEOPLE. please check to see if the person's account is still active before sending books, i recently sent 3 books out and when i went to send them reminders, the accounts were inactive. i am now checking all person's accounts who request from me to make sure that they are still active. i hope this helps future senders to not lose money and points like i did.- adriane

Bobbi, You can also use the charity feature from your member's page. Just put the other members ID in the space and then you can select how many points you want to give them. Thanks for all your help with the project!- Cara

I have enough points to do some more clean-up, but thanks for the offer, Cara. My plan is: I sent a mooch-request, they don't reply for 7 days, I cancel my request and they're put on vacation. I have one more question about that: when an inactive account is put on vacation, does it no longer appear on the list of members "by country"? Because that's the list I really want cleaned up.- Booklover NL

Thanks Booklover NL. No need to post the links here unless they are accounts that show glitches (ie books which show in the inventory but not somehow moochable) or if they are worldwide accounts you would like one of us to mooch instead. However, please let me know if you would like some points to work with so you don't have to wait so long before tackling more accounts. I would be happy to "charity" some points to you to work with.- Cara

Hi Booklover NL! Thanks for helping! Someone will probably get on here with more information for you, but I think if you are the only one mooching, yes, you don't have to post the names. But- in the past if someone wanted help they would post links to the long inactive accounts, and note whether they were "my country only", "ask first", or "worldwide". Maybe Cara (or someone more experienced with how this project worked around the world than me) could give you more info, but I think you are right, that if you are the only one, you don't really have to post the names. I did do a search for last spring's first round of this project for the Netherlands, and it looks like they were concentrating on accounts over 200 days inactive with more than 2 books....Thanks for the help!!- Melanie C.

Hello
I'm 1 of currently 124 BookMooch-members from The Netherlands. Many of those 124 have been inactive for a very long time. So I'll try to clean this up a bit. Starting with A, i have mooched from Alette (inactive for over 1000 days). If this works and I have some free time, I'll continue with the names till Z. I hope this is the right way to do it.
Is it necesary for me to post every clean-up-mooch on this forum, since I think I'm the only one cleaning op the Dutch accounts?
Bye, BookloverNL- Booklover NL

Well, I tried to bump this message this morning and had the same issue as Melanie, the comment disappeared. So... I am just going to ramble on for a bit, don't mind me. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along....- Kerry

I hope that works Cara, let me know if you want to rewrite or tweak that in any way. Also, for all participants, if you have time, would you mind looking at the top section and provide input as to whether we can explain the purpose of the project better?- Kerry

Kerry,
Could you also add that URL's from .com work better than URL's from co.uk and that copying the URL from the bio page under the BM ID is better than copying the URL from the address bar of the browser for pasting the link into messages. In other words, the URL should *not* include the /bio.- Cara

We should add something about
"if there are several books in the inactive person's inventory, but none of them would be acceptable to you, post the link to the member's page here, and someone else may be able to mooch from them."
and maybe:
"if the inactive person has only one or two books, and they are obscure, and unlikely to be mooched, it may be ok to skip them at this time, and wait until the next round of "clean-up""
What do you think?- Robin

Thanks for doing this Kerry! I've been meaning to do this for a few days now but crazy busy around here right now. I would add that some of us send an email or put a note in the cancellation email explaining what we are doing and why and explaining how they can reactivate their account.- Cara

Don't know if people are still doing this, but seems like an awesome idea! I'm gonna start doing it in my own country first, but it's going to take a while seeing as I don't have many points. Please do consider mooching from me =)

Thanks, I did not know about the cancellation page options or vacation after cancellation.
I cancelled, with owner did not respond.
Consider the acct vacationed. BM ID walkertxkitty
Thanks for the help- MissyMoo

MissyMoo, You need to supply her BM ID, not her user name if you want one of the volunteers to help. You can vacation her yourself. Simply cancel the mooch stating "the owner did not respond" as the reason. Her account will be vacationed.- Cara

As it's an ongoing project - there may be accounts around 200 days now as I remember seeing some around 170/180 days when I compiled the original list. As my targets at the time were accounts 200 days inactive, and the list was done 3 weeks ago...
If you want to help Elaine feel free but you may want to leave it a couple of months and have a go then.- donna

Elaine / Donna, there's not really much needing done right now, I have mooched from everyone on the list at the top of the page and this will either kickstart their account if they respond, or allow me to put their accounts on vacation this weekend if they don't.- ellybabes

Hi Elaine, thanks for your offer of assistance. All the accounts that had been identified have been mooched from but seeing as the list was created a month ago there may now be more out there. The idea was to find accounts that had been inactive for a period of time, I took 200 days-ish as my guide, and mooch a book from them with the intention of renewing their interest in the site. There is always an element of danger in it, as quite often when doing the UK accounts many of us had to mooch stuff we may not have been that interested in - a kind of Russian Roulette - only with Dan Brown and Brigitte Jones instead of bullets!!! I've received a few that I had no real interest in but have re-listed them, and for the most part shifted them on (Hurray!!!)
If you want to find any accounts and mooch, feel free. You can find them by going through the browse button and selecting 'location', from there select 'people - country' and you should be able to click on Ireland and you're in - you can go through the members one-by-one. You need to leave 7 clear days plus the time difference before doing anything, even if an email bounces back (the site has an 8 hour time lag for the UK on the times it displays for the mooches). You then cancel the mooch selecting the 'did not respond' option and the account should then be 'on vacation'. It doesn't hold any penalty for the account holder as they can easily re-activate their account, but it does mean that their books shouldn't show up as available, which is very annoying to all. If you've got any more questions let me know.- donna

I've finally found time to update the lists! We now just need Irish members to mooch from those set to 'ask first' as there's really nothing else that I can do. I've sent 'would you please consider sending...' requests and had one response but apart from that it's been a failure- donna

Hiya, I'm one of the Irish angels that received your email, I will request a book from everyone on the "My country only list" above. I will let you know if any response is received. I have plenty of spare points, so there is no need for a donation.
Thank you for emailing me. I don't have time to use the forums, but I'm glad to help with any BookMooch projects as needed.- ellybabes

I've have made request of 'mush' and 'Eimear Murphy' from the My Country Only list above.
No response from the first, but a response that they're looking for the book from Eimear. So I'll see what happens on that one.
Given I really have no interest in any of the books on the other inventories, I'm going to leave it at that.
Cheers
Donogh- Donogh

Donna, I have emailed a couple of Irish angels, and if I get no response I'll try a couple more. The "ask first" people will need a domestic mooch much like the "my country only" people. Lynn, you never know, your request emails may result in reactivating the accounts. It doesn't hurt to ask!- Cara

@lynn - if they are 'ask first' then no record of your request appears on your pending page until they say 'yes' and you mooch. I was thinking of just reporting them to admin to let them decide what to do.- donna

@lynn - how are you going to vacate them? Are you going to report to admin? I've got three that I requested well over a week ago and no response from two but an acceptance from the other, which I think was good going.- donna

Lynn, Thanks for the help. I've updated the list and removed the 'strange' one. There's definitely an Irish account linked to that one somehow, just not sure how or why, but it will always show up as an inactive account when looking through the Irish members. I'm hoping that somehow we can get an Irish member to help with any that are set to my country only or don't respond to our polite requests!- donna

is there anyone in this forum in China? There's a member qbchen(China) that has one book listed, and last time I tried the "ask me" first, he didn't seem to understand the purpose of bookmooch, and told me he was keeping this book, but would photocopy pages for me. I think someone in China would have to mooch the book, then vacation him if he doesn't respond. Alternately, if he doesn't answer the mooch on-site, is there a way to forward his emails to the admins, so they can vacation his account?

Thanks so much, Ashley,
It's good to hear that this is not a common occurrence because, frankly, I've removed my inventory thinking that bookmooch might not be the place for me.
I suppose I can send the member another email, but since my last went to her June 23...maybe she just isn't interested anymore?
I dunno.
In any case thanks for your thoughts.- bonny

Bonny, try emailing the person directly through your email from the address from the original request email. Some people have trouble receiving Bookmooch emails. The member is definitely active, having been on the site only a few days ago, but may not check email regularly. If they address error was there's, you could ask them to smooch you an extra point to resend the book.- Cara

Bonny,
I'm so sorry that happened to you. I want to let you know that this isn't a typical exchange. I hope you didn't spend much money sending the book! I haven't ever experienced anything like what you are describing on bookmooch.
I checked on your pending requests, and it seems like the person you sent to has been to bookmooch in the past week. They are probably not inactive.
To mark a person as inactive you have to mooch a book from them. If they don't respond in 7 days you have the option, when cancelling the request, to click "did not respond." That will mark the person as inactive.
I would have done what you did and sent an email. How long ago did you send the email?- Ashley

I am new to bookmooch and am, so far, a bit disappointed.
A member asked for a Janet Evanovich book from me, which I sent immediately.
The book was returned "No Such Number." I rechecked and rechecked the address on the request, but I sent it to the right place.
I sent an email to the member, "missy d" but received no response.
It seems odd that an inactive user would send a request.
What should I do?- bonny

Ashley, we don't mark people inactive, we're just lowly volunteers;) Once 7 days have passed and you cancel using "the owner did not respond" as the reason, the account is automatically put on vacation. Thanks for participating in our project.- Cara

@ Ashley, that's great. How about I send you few points so you don't have to tie up your own points in mooching the books in order to vacation the accounts? It would be better if you did it, since it would take 3 points a book for one of us to do it. Remember to wait a full 7 days before cancelling so the account is vacationed. Let me know if you want me to charity you a few points to take care of some of these inactives that have books you don't want. You can repay the points to me once all the inactive accounts are vacationed.- Cara

There are still a few of this tackling accounts every month or so. I tend to do the Canadian ones. I know some others keep an eye on American accounts. We are not proceeding in a systematic way anymore since we accomplished so much during the first two passes. However, if anyone runs across an inactive account that they would like to vacation, but don't have the points to spare just post the link here and I'm sure one of the volunteers will be happy to help.

I vacationed another three very inactive accounts this morning. I've been a little less kind than some of the other account cleaners, and have taken accounts that have been inactive for around 100 days, sometimes even 80-90 days. Sorry folks, but if you haven't been around for three months, where have you been? I do, however, hope that some of those newly-vacationed accounts will be reactivated. The aim of this collective initiative is to clean out inactive accounts, but also to reawaken BM interest and promote active mooching and inventory listing. I do hope that some of those people will wake up and come back to BM.

I tried to mooch six or seven books from vickimarie but she didn't reply and when I cancelled this morning her account was already on vacation. Another inactive member, and half a dozen books I'd have looked to mooch at domestic rate (1 point) rather than international (3 points).- jacquie

I sometimes slip and don't get the "owner never responded" line, but rather the "changed my mind" line...We're doing so many of these, a few are bound to slip through.
I'll be curious to see what the statistics are when we've gone through a full round.- Robin

Cara et al: I've done nothing about any accounts on hold, as I decided they were already under investigation by BM admin. The nidalou account is now closed, so that's one fewer to bother about in the future.- jacquie

I contacted tech guys about this one. We can't vacation accounts that are on hold, and I figure if the account is on hold and inactive for over a year all you can do is ask them to look at it for us.- Cara

I hope that France is now finished. I vacationed a further nine accounts this morning.The good news is that one apparently inactive account from which I mooched has now mooched another book from me, so that's one that's revived, which is superb news.Good luck to everyone else continuing this project.- jacquie

France should now be almost clear of inactive accounts - I vacationed another 20-odd this morning. I just haven't had the time to translate the suggested form letter into French, so I'm afraid the clean-up here has been a little more brutal. Luckily for me, most of the mooches that have come through I've been able to send out to someone else. As for the rest, well, I suppose they're inventory until a sale comes along!- jacquie

Some really inactive accounts are coming through with accepted mooches, so my ratio is going to be really messed up. I hope that they'll be mooched quickly when I relist them!Maybe these people might be a little more active on BM now they've had a mooch.One account has been closed as a result of my trying to mooch, so I suppose it's healthy for BM if someone who's no longer interested has closed the account.- jacquie

Got a *very* fast response from Miira. I wrote this to her:
I'm a member of the BookMooch group that is seeking to reactivate inactive accounts. We selected your account because it had been so long since you'd been on the site.
We would really love it if you would list more books to trade. There are several other active BM members in Finland who would probably love to trade with you.
Rather than sending me Hannibal, could I get you to donate it to a local group, so you don't have to pay for postage? You can keep the points, we'd just really like to see you reactivate on the group.
Robin
Hopefully she'll rejoin us!- Robin

Update on my first ten "project mooches": 2 mooches accepted (one of them from over 1400 days inactive moocher - wow!), 2 vacationed (email bounced), the other 6 still pending for one more week.
I mooched today from two accounts from the list above and updated the list.- vivir

but it seems that the issue with the automated list is not going to get ironed out anytime soon and I am starting to see a number of members becoming inactive for over 200 days. So... anyone up for another pass?

Donna and Lynn, I've still been plodding through London too but, like Donna, have found that I've had more books than I expected. I need to get some books out of the house and sort out all my outstanding moochs before I start again. Perhaps, ad Donna suggests, we could have a couple of months off before tackling the list again.- Yvonne D

I had a few actually awakened accounts on my first go at Canada this time around, but not, I think, many more than last time. And I vacationed (or they rejected and closed) quite a few. I am going to keep going on the rest of Canada once I finally have a couple of hours to spare to finish the Bookmooch Angel List Clean-up. Life got suddenly busy and I couldn't tackle that job as soon as I had hoped, but things are easing up this starting this next week. I am also planning to get back to my exercise class;)- Cara

I got from the end of the alphabet into the London listings but can't do any more for a while as I simply have too many books here as it is. Many of the mooches actually happened, unlike the first sweep and I just kept getting stuff that I don't really want. Maybe we ought to leave the UK for a good couple of months to make sure that we are targetting genuine lapsed accounts?- donna

@ Melanie from 23 days ago. gad gruenstein and Andy have logged in recently so can be removed from the list. (New Jersey) Most of the rest are vacationed, except for Vanessa whose one book is "Fundamentals of Nursing".- Kerry

@Valerie, I have sent the email to the active moocher. Here is what that looks like for our newer project members:
Hi, I am working on a project to identify and mooch from inactive members and try to reactive some of those accounts. I noticed you have a mooch that has been pending for a few weeks with this person: Emily. Our project identified this member as one who might be inactive, and I was wondering if you have been in contact with this person? If not, would you be willing to cancel your pending mooch - when you are ready to do so - using the "book owner never responded" option? That would place the member automatically "on vacation" so their inventory would no longer show up on the site, removing some of the "clutter".

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me. We would very much appreciate help. If you are interested in the project, you can read about it on the BM forums here: Inactive Accounts Clean-up Project Inactive Accounts Clean-up Project

Thank you and happy mooching!
-Kerry-
The template is located in the Form Letter thread which I generally find through the link in the FAQ- Kerry

I'm thinking of maybe taking a few weeks off from mooching until after Xmas, as my Post Office is getting so super busy, that if others' Post Offices are like mine, no one who is debating if they want to stay active in BookMooch is going to want to go this time of year! It might push people away from BookMooch-- counter-productive! I know there are ways around going to the P.O. to mail a book, but I think most people don't really know that or aren't familiar with the ways to do it, and even the APC machine in the lobby is getting a line!

So I'm really thinking of taking a break for a few weeks, at least until after the craziness at the Post Office is over....- Melanie C.

@ Rachel good news! (I guess) It looks like, in the "old" California list, Jassie B. has already been vacationed by Kerry, and Sarah Veedub and Megan have been put in the "glitches" thread because their books cannot be mooched, so they can be crossed off (yay).Also, Kerry got bigbri earlier also and s/he is on vacation.- Melanie C.

Updated the California post. Had a bunch of points become available, so I got a good chunk crossed off. Noticed that there were pending mooches in some of the accounts by @Melanie C., so I struck those out too.- Rachel

I have moooched from all the leftover people from Ohio (yay! scratch that one off the list) and
@Rachel-- from your consolidated California post I have mooched from: annettefri, Carol, Paula, Stephanie, Rob, and lea.- Melanie C.

@ Valerie, mooched from Mary, Hannah and James Kiernan
I am not really waiting much longer to vacation, though I understand why you might want to do that. Most of mine should have been vacationed Friday night anyway. I did have a couple who had logged in to their accounts, and for those I sent reminders (as I usually do), one I got the book today though it had never been marked accepted let alone shipped. Glad I didn't cancel.- Kerry

@ Kerry Thanks! Have edited or deleted as appropriate.
I'm going to wait a couple of days (because of the outage) to "vacation" a lot of people, then I will have a lot of points! But because the outage was so long this time I'm going to wait, giving the benefit of the doubt and saving me some guilt :) . But then I will be mooching a lot more.- Melanie C.

I've got several accounts to 'vacation' that should have been done yesterday. I'm going to give them an extra couple of days because of the recent problems as there really is no rush to do them.- donna

Wow, Laura, that was fast! Post is updated!
Anyone else torn about "vacationing" accounts that are just 7 days past the mooch request, but not feeling right about it because BookMooch has been down so much lately?- Melanie C.

Well Lynn, I would hardly call myself an expert;) but I think this situation calls for an angel! We need a UK angel who lives in the greater London area who would not be unhappy to receive a copy of whatever book that is if the account owner should happen to actually respond to the mooch request. Or, contrarywise, someone else in the UK could mooch the book with a note in the mooch request explaining they are mooching only to see if the member plans to continue to use their bookmooch account and will cancel the mooch if the owner does not wish to mail to them.

Bottom line, it is okay, I believe, to put a book in your inventory and indicate it is available for a mooch-meet or in person collection only, but it does cause some difficulties for our project.

UK Moochers - I have done all the UK towns beginning with L up to and including London North. There was one member Lawrence Clark who had one book listed which was labelled as collection only in the descrption. He has been inactive for 907 days. Not sure where we go with that one.- Yvonne D

UK Moochers - would someone mind attemting to mooch from elaine t.
She's only offering one book but I'm not sure what it is. I am reluctant to attempt to mooch something unknown especially something published in the Soviet Union.- Yvonne D

@Rachel Another kind of tip when working on this project I have found, is that you might want to mention in your status on your bio page that you are working on this project, otherwise to someone looking at your history it looks like a sea of red (lot of cancellations compared to actual completed mooches)! Just a tip :) ....- Melanie C.

@Lynn, I have attempted to mooch the Bridget Jones Diary as I don't have one in my inventory.
I'm still working my way through the UK towns beginning with L - when I offered to start at L, I forgot about London! Never mind - I'll get there slowly.
Yvonne- Yvonne D

Lynn, if you get the book 'incompetnece' from Lim Soon Deen I'll happily take it off your hands! I've tried to mooch it before and got no reply so vacated the account. They then reactivated the account but I never tried to mooch it again because I thought that if they'd ignored one request from me they'd probably ignore another.- donna

Oh Dear, I've been out of touch for a while. Sorry everyone. Thanks for helping to finish up Washington and Oregon. I will remove the names from that post after I post this.

Since We've finished Washington and Oregon, I guess it's time to start on California. This is quite a big one. Lots of Zip codes and lots of high days inactive. This is about half the zip codes. I've mooched as many as I can, but there are still a lot to go around.

UK Helpers
I've completed the UK P's, O's and N's.
Can't mooch from Detig as they have foreign language books.
Also I won't mooch from Neil Tracey as I tried last time around and even though he accepted (without a delay) he never sent the book so I cancelled after one month.- donna

Yes, that's another thing that happens....Or someone's account will say they're "on vacation" but their books won't be "hidden", it will still have them having books in inventory. When I emailed admin about what to do about these accounts, they requested that rather than sending them in individually to tech support that we put them into groups and send them in a couple times a week....Maybe I can start a thread of "glitches in the system" and when people come across these accounts (or books within accounts) we can post them in this thread and periodically I (or someone) can send them into admin? What do you guys think?- Melanie C.

Hi Rachel! I just thought of another tip when doing this project (actually it works with BookMooch in general but you might run into it more with all the requests) -- make sure to check your spam folder for possible responses to your mooch requests, it's not unusual to find things caught there -- emails, mooches received, mooches accepted, etc. Something to do with BookMooch sending the emails, but with a different return address (the individual's), so it looks suspicious....

I am low on points, too, but will be mooching more later in the week!- Melanie C.

Hi everybody! Just finished up mooching from my posts of 5 and 7 days ago, so deleted those. So that's 2 more states done (Hawaii and Florida)! Now low on points, so will be "resting" :) . Actually, in the time since I had posted those names, 1 of them had a mooch, which is now pending, so I didn't have to mooch from them :) .- Melanie C.

I just found this forum and I'm sure I have lots more points than I really need. I'd like to help out in the UK so could someone let me know where I can help. I think I saw that someone had done A and B and someone else had done T to Z.
Yvonne- Yvonne D

I don't really have an opinion regarding the length of inactivity which is why I haven't commented on these questions. I am a bit concerned that we do not have as many moochers active this time, so maybe older is better? I'm just pleased we are making progress. It seems to me that the difference is whether one thinks that those between 200-300 days inactive are more likely to reactivate when contacted. If so, then it would be a benefit to mooching from the 200-300 days inactives. If not, then we will get to them in the next pass, or they will come back on their own I guess. So, I think each searcher should go with their instinct.- Kerry

Hi Rachel!
What I have been doing, when I say "I've finished such and such a state" I am saying that I have posted in this thread, or mooched from, all those over 300 days inactive in that state. I've been using brainyzip.com to see which zip codes go to which states, but there's no real requirement on how to do it :) . We could decide to go down to 200 days, too, I'm just doing 300 because it seems there were so many between 200 and 300 when I looked, I don't know if it's because people were less active over the summer?, but when I asked in a previous post if that was ok (that I only go to 300), no one said anything, so I stuck with that! I think some people haven't logged in in a while not because they are really inactive, but because no one has mooched from them in that time, and they don't "haunt" their wishlist, they just wait for an email....You can see from their feedback if they've been ignoring requests, or just haven't been mooched from in awhile. Sometimes you'll come across people who've forgotten they have an account, or they left the country even, it can get interesting :) ! But like I said before, checking the feedback is good to see if they are active recently (within 300 days), even tho they haven't logged in--I've even had people whose email bounced, but I still ended up getting the book!
Anyway, any more questions, let us know!- Melanie C.

Lynne, I've been through the UK S and R listings. The two accounts with foreign language books were
neil_mDave23a
The second one does have a Dan Brown but I'm not prepared to do it this time round!- donna

Thanks Melanie & CS. I figured out the the line break, but I didn't know the command for strikethrough.

I'll make sure to check 1-3 before I post any more names. Luckily, I none of the ones I mooched from have any of those special cases!

Thanks for the list of States you've finished. Glad I didn't duplicate your hard work. Are you considering a state finished when you post all the names, when someone has mooched something from each person over 300 from the state, or when all the accounts have either logged in and sent the book or been vacationed?

Filling in the comment field would probably be a good idea, huh. If you don't mind me getting my grubby paws dirty, I'll "borrow" this one too. It sounds pretty good to me!- Rachel

thanks a lot Rachel! Just a couple of hints also:
1) make sure you check someone's pending before you mooch, if they have a fairly recent (few months?) pending I was passing them by because I wasn't sure if they'd been in contact with the person and didn't want to possibly interfere and to "vacation" them if an active mooch was taking place. (Is this what other people did, btw?)
2) Also I always checked their feedback, because, it's rare, but a few people don't necessarily log in, but will check their pending page or just respond to mooches but still be active, and they will have successful mooches within the time period, they just haven't logged in. I've seen this happen.
3) We've also had a request from the person that is heavily involved with tracking BookMooch Journals to please not vacation anyone who has a BookMooch Journal in their inventory, he is trying hard to track these down, and to please let him know and he will contact them. To be honest I never found one, but he was worried, so we always look. I think his name is Gil Tennant, I would have to do a search of this forum to make sure. (Did anyone else find a Journal? Just curious :) )
4) When you go to "vacation" someone if they've not gotten back to you, you have to wait the full 7 days and the time posted is Pacific time, and you have to say the reason is "no response" to get the "vacation" to work. All they have to do to go off the vacation is to log back in (I'll bet this was in the FAQ, now that I think about it. Oh well :) )
5) I've been doing the 3-digit zip code list too, and I've done these states so far (down to 300 days, anyway): All the territories and Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland, Illinois, Texas, North Carolina, Hawaii, Florida. Just going randomly! When I finish a state I've been posting that.
Can't think of anything else right now. Oh wait-- one of our Italian members came up with this thing to say in the comments of our mooches and I borrowed it immediately! Others use their own versions, but there are really no rules, you can do whatever you want!
"Hi, I'm working at a project aimed to review BookMooch inactive accounts. If you're no longer interested in being a member of this website, you don't have to do anything. Otherwise, can you please get in touch with me? thanks in advance!"
Any other questions, just let us know! And thanks!
Melanie C.- Melanie C.

Thanks so much for the Welcome. The FAQ was really helpful. Now, down to business!

I started going through the 3 zip from USA from the end of the list (since I wasn't sure which areas where already done). It looks like the zips I've looked at are Washington and a start into Oregon.

I focused on the people who were 300 days or more innactive. There were a lot more people over 200 days, but there were already more than I could mooch myself going down to 300. Let me know if you want me to post the over 200 accounts I found also.

I'm not sure how to do the strike through text, so I just put (mooched) next to the ones I tried to mooch from.

Hi Rachel and welcome! There are a couple of ways to help, you can do some searching and posts books available to mooch, you can mooch books that are posted and/or you can help us organize our searches. Whatever interests you. Please note that if you mooch books, you will likely receive a few, so you will have more books, but it tends to be a small percentage of those we ask for. Here is the FAQ thread, you might also want to read through it to see if it answers some of your questions: FAQ
We'd love to have your help!- Kerry

Hi all. I have some extra points and more books than I could possibly read right now, so nothing to spend them on at the moment. I'd love to help out, but I'm pretty new and I'm not quite sure exactly what you need people to do. Please let me know how I can help out!- Rachel

Your devotion is noted, and admired! I still have more books from the project than I would like, but slowly they seem to be requested. I wish you much luck in a speedy request for Bridget Jones...- Kerry

Thanks to Robin for donating 10 points to the cause! I will get them back to you when this pass is done :) .
What do you guys think about me just posting 300 days inactive people while going thru the U.S.A. 3-digit-zip? There are a ton of people over 200 right now! I don't know if it's because over the summer people are busier (taking vacations, etc.) and so not so active or just a general slow-down of the site, but there are a lot more people than I thought there would be! Or-- we can just figure it'll take longer to get through, and we might possibly run into more people who aren't really inactive....What do you guys think?- Melanie C.

Lynn, What happens when you click on the "3 years ago" in the inventory. It takes me to a book details page with very few details but since she is an "only" there is no mooch button. If that doesn't work, all you can do is click "abuse" and ask the tech support people to take a look at it.- Cara

France
When I cleaned up French inactive accounts a few months ago, I was rather more ruthless than some other people on the project and mooched from every account of 50+ days, so unless I missed something, I don't think you'll find any accounts inactive for 200+ days in France! I wouldn't therefore see French accounts as a priority for the next clean-up session. I'll help again at some point, but have rather too many other things to attend to at present.- jacquie

I tend to agree, we might as well try to mooch from any member inactive over a certain amount of time, and 200 or 250 days seems reasonable to me. I would prefer to post all of them, even the ones with just one book and hopefully we can make the overall inventory on the site a lot cleaner.- Kerry

Last time I didn't bother posting the one book inventories, but maybe this time we should? (Except for the ones with one big old computer or calculus text). 200 days seems reasonable to me. What do others think?- Cara

I'm up for it :) ! I can start going thru the "3-digit zip code" list again -- and I agree, I'm sure it's started adding up (days inactive), and people should be back from summer vacations....so I'm up for it! I even have some points :) !- Melanie C.

Hi Kerry, Now that I have finished all my classes and have been at my new job for almost a month I feel I can poke my head out and start taking care of other stuff again. I'm going to start with cleaning up the BM angel list, then take a run through the Canadian members again. I don't know how many inactives I'll find this time. We are down to only 671 members in Canada now (we used to have over a thousand).- Cara

Hi all, If any of you are willing to help, the Angel Network coordinator needs help going through the BM angel list and finding any inactive accounts, closed and accounts and people who have moved from the country they originally said they would angel for. Please post accounts you find in the forum that are 120 days or more inactive and the coordinator or I will email them to see if they still want to be angels. The closed or no longer in the country accounts I will go on the web page and remove from the list.

After that, getting a list of countries that don't have angels but which need them would be helpful. Then we can start enlisting some more angels.

Wow, you ladies rock! I've removed closed accounts and emailed moved people. I've emailed our Angel-in-chief and let her know that you are posting the bios of the inactives so she can start emailing them. It does look like we are going to have some vacancies to fill when we finish this.

I'm the one who does the actual "removing";) But I did let her know and asked if I should remove them and she said yes, but keep a record in case they come back and ask why they were removed. I've had a half dozen reply and ask to be removed and a couple reply and said they still want to be angels. One lovely one about how much she loves doing it, but changed her status because of family issues and how much she treasures the friends she has made world-wide. Makes it worth doing all this work;)- Cara

Finally making some progress on this. I have discovered quite a few inactive angels with no books in their inventory so they can't be vacationed. Have we figured out any way of dealing with these accounts? I've emailed them all to ask if they are still interested in being angels (and have an inbox full of bounced emails as a result).- Cara

@CS thanks, I'll do more editing of the list tomorrow. Weird that all those "my country only" people are listed as angels. I guess we need to email them as well as the vacationed accounts to see if they still want to be on the angel list.- Cara

Cara, none of the angels in Australia are more than 120 days inactive. One has a message currently unable to angel buddha_girl. Also alisonagain has a profile message please ask someone else first. All the rest are active or vacationed, say 45 days inactive- Marianne

These accounts are under the U.S. and are marked closed: jesusgurl30, anchorhold, tazzy60, greyst04
These are also under U.S. but inactive: bw94606, (on vacation) phinsup67, bullymom
U.S. - Temporarily unable to angel: infiniteletters, jacquelyn
Am I doing something wrong, these aren't giving you the direct link are they?- Linda

Karen from Malaysia is back in Malaysia and has updated her profile to reflect that. Adina is willing to angel for UK now. The other Karen just visited the UK and is actually in Canada so I'll switch her back too. thanks everyone!- Cara

Thanks Laura! Would you like to sign up as an Angel from Brazil? We only have one;) I'm not sure of Canada has been gone through yet or Australia if you wanted to start with those. Just click on the bio link for each person and note if they are still a member, inactive or have moved to a different country and post your results here. thanks!

eta oops Australia has been done. So check Canada? and the next would be the U.S.A.!

I checked all the Australia angels and I found out these members:
(Although please someone check again just in case...)
al (Australia)
bio:alisonagain
NOTE ON INTERNATIONAL MOOCHING: I am temporarily going Australia-only. Thanks! (14/03/2011)
Don't know if it still applies.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Donna (Australia)
bio:buddha_girl
Status message:
Sorry, I'm currently taking a break from Angel mooching. I will send any books out I have agreed to mooch.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tammie (Australia)
bio:tam
Bio:
Sorry, but I am only able to send books within Australia at the moment due to rising costs and a growing family. This may change in the future depending on my circumstances - for over 5 years as a member I have sent books all over the world as I love that Bookmooch is a worldwide community!- Domino28

Thanks Debbie, I emailed all the wrong country listings and removed the closed accounts. The inactives we'll have to contact and see if we can get them to log in again and if they want to continue to be angels.- Cara

This user is active but she's listed as an angel in Malaysia but her profile says she's in the UK.
bio:karen_ling17
If she's no longer in Malaysia, then there will be no Angel left there.
And I found another inactive one in Japan: bio:yoursimplename
Will send: only to my country
Joined: 2006/09/18
Last here: 159 days ago
Italy:
bio:seleya
Last here: 214 days ago
Israel:
bio:renarossner
Last here: 160 days ago
bio:emerald2694
Last here: 166 days ago
Mexico (this user profile says he's in Spain?)
bio:luisdelafuente
Last here: 120 days ago
I work from below Mexico to Greece only.- Silvana

Hi Theresa, thanks for offering! You could pick a country from the BM angel list and start clicking on the links. List any accounts that are inactive greater than 120 days here on the forum. Also list any accounts that are closed or no longer appear to be in the country listed. thanks!- Cara

I've mooched from the inactives (more than 200 days) up to letter "m". Only one Dan Brown and one old computer book, so not too bad;) We are down to 608 Canadian accounts. I expect that number will go down in another 7 days. There used to be 1100 or so of us.

Thanks CS! I have posted the last list. At some point I will spend some time going through the forum to see if we can dig out the mooch lists and determine which are complete and where we have mooching still needed.- Kerry

I've been noticing the same - I've gotten a greater percentage of responses and sending than I did last round. There was one moocher who was +300 days and he packaged and sent in a day or two - his inventory was small and fairly obscure so I suspect he just hadn't had any transactions recently. I have never used 'the blurb' and treated each mooch like a real one - I personally feel like if I'm going to request something, I have to be willing to get it. It's one of the reasons I'm being more selective this round. (That and thanks to this project and my attempts to mooch from recently posted books, I am fairly low on points, lower than I've been since right after I joined BM yonks ago.)- LauraTS

@everyone. Same here, definitely more activity this time around. But last time I was trying to work mostly the really old accounts +1000 days. I am not using the blurb anymore, so I am just treating these like any other mooch so I am not getting those questions. I stopped using it sometime in the middle of the last round since no one ever replied. I guess I could be accused of hiding my association with the project, though it is right on my bio page if anyone is interested. But the blurb seemed more trouble than it was worth to me. YMMV.
@Rachel, I am also trying to mooch from the over 300 days inactive accounts first, then moving to the <300. Since we have fewer moochers this go round, or so it seems to me, it makes sense to let them age a bit on the threads. We can mooch them later, and maybe in the meantime they will log in. :)- Kerry

@ Rachel Last Spring when we first did this I'm preety sure I got a lot less interested/still engaged members responding to me. Of course, more people had been inactive for much longer (2 and 3 years even) and they're gone now (or at least inactive).

But the nice thing about this project is, I think I can safely say, that there really are no rules about participating.... If you have to drop out, or use your points for other things (like mooching books! :) ), or you're getting too many acceptances and you have to be more picky about which books you mooch (like, say, only books that actually seem interesting to you, book that you could repost, books from people that when you look at their feedback it looks like they have already been ignoring people's requests and disappointing other bm'ers, but just haven't been vacationed, etc....)-- everything is ok.

The other objective with this project, of course, is to encourage people to not lose touch with BookMooch, and not to forget about the site, etc., and that's where it's nice to mooch from people with less days inactive-- maybe they'd never get to a year or more if they'd been mooched from earlier, is the idea. That takes more points, tho, that idea. Similar to mooching from brand new members, they are more likely to stay....- Melanie C.

@Melanie C. I've been seeing the same thing recently. I don't know how it compares to last time, but lately I've been getting a lot of responses asking if I really want the book. Also one rejection for "Request doesn't appear to be a legitimate request for a book".
I also wanted to chime in and say that I've only been focusing on posting accounts over 300 days old. A lot of the 200+ accounts look like they just haven't been mooched from in a while. Plus, especially with California, the number would almost double if I posted the 200+. (I have been tracking them and I post them/mooch from them if they become 300+ or if they don't seem to be an account just waiting for a mooch...that's pretty subjective though).- Rachel

@Kerry no need to be sorry-thanks for organizing all this! The only other thing I see is that California has all been posted, tho a lot still have to be mooched. What I myself have been doing is trying to get thru the biggest states so when we start getting burnt out, at least the big ones will be out of the way....

What I've noticed this time around, at least for me, is there are more people who haven't really dropped out of BookMooch, but just haven't been mooched from in a while, so they accept mooches when they come (more than last time anyway). It makes me hesitant to mooch less than 300 days inactive, even, as it seems the closer I get to 300 days the more responses I get along the lines of "yes I am still interested in being a BookMooch member, but I'm confused, do you still want the book?" making me feel bad if I "wake" them up just to say no....Sometimes I have "woken" people up and mooched from them and they've gotten into the site again, maybe even used some points they already had and that feels good...I just have to be a little choosy as I don't have lots of points...
- Melanie C.

Thanks Melanie and Valerie. I must have moved Louisiana in error, so I have put it back onto the "to be completed" list. I searched the forum and there is nothing about it for this time around. Sorry about that!- Kerry

Alright, I double checked Washington and Oregon zip codes and all of the over 300 accounts have been identified and posted, but they haven't all been mooched from yet. I'll post as soon as they are. In the meantime, I've started working on the California accounts, so California can be added to the Underway section.

I'm not sure! It's only been a few months....Maybe I'll make a note of it and at the end of this pass I will check and see if the mooch is still outstanding? That might work, just wait a bit?- Melanie C.

Looks good as far as I can tell, Kerry. I also just checked Alaska, and it looks like they are all under 300 days, except 1 member at 305, but they have a pending mooch from a few months ago from an active member, so maybe keep an eye on that?- Melanie C.

@ Kerry The ones that have been mooched and completed by me are:Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, all Commonwealths and Territories. All of Hawaii, Florida, and Illinois have been posted, but not all mooched from. I think that's it.- Melanie C.

I don't know if this is correct really, I tried to piece it together from comments over in It's been a nice break.... I will try to keep it updated as best I can, if searchers will post their progress. Cheers,- Kerry

@ Melanie, I went through the same thing when I saw members I swear I vacationed the first time through California. I don't know if I cancelled without using member didn't respond or whether I am just remembering it wrong. In any case, no worries. jcc I reported to tech support because when you try and mooch his book it says "no copies available"
This is where I get discouraged. This member was reported in Spring? And there has been no fix? I just feel like we are trying to be helpful for the good of the site and our request for help to the "official" volunteers are just ignored. What is up with that?- Kerry

No I am not obsessive!! (grin)
edited to add: I just realized that Digital Lycanthrope published his only book, which probably put me off initially. Still doesn't explain Wendil tho....Well, I took care of both of them :) .- Melanie C.

Ok, I checked on the Texas people who I probably should have caught when I did this last month. I have no idea why I didn't catch Digital Lycanthrope LLC and Wendil...sorry about that!

But I can explain the others, I think. SpaniardX had a successful mooch in late April, so I skipped him/her. jcc I reported to tech support because when you try and mooch his book it says "no copies available". Catherine had 2 pending mooches within the last month. Steph had a successful mooch (or a mooch successfully concluded) in August.
The only reason I did all this is I wanted to know why I missed so many I should have caught, which is disturbing....No offense to anyone!!!! It just relieves me to know that there was only 2 I somehow missed, that the others had explanations....- Melanie C.

I just realized that this list includes Texas, which is the first state I did (at least down to 300 days by Oct. 5 when I finished). So now I'm wondering why there are any accounts with over 338 days....I guess I'm not perfect, but I'll look at those older accounts and try and see why I missed them, if possible....
I also did Hawaii, which explains why there are no accounts with over 300 days there.- Melanie C.